Hammocks enjoy great popularity in indoor as well as outdoor settings, and depending on the particular locale and/or type of use, may be set up in a permanent or temporary manner. For example, where a hammock is permanently set up on a patio, hooks or other fasteners may be installed to a post or in a wall to fasten the hammock. Alternatively, a hammock may be fixed to a tree by tying or otherwise coupling a tether to the tree.
On the other hand, where a hammock is temporarily used (e.g., for only part of one day), or where permanent attachment of the hammock to a support is not desirable or possible, a hammock may be supported by a hammock stand. There are numerous hammock stands known in the art, however, all or almost all of them suffer from one or more disadvantage. For example, various retailers offer hammock stands with an arched center beam having two or more legs that support the center beam off the ground (see Prior Art FIG. 1). Hammock stands with an arched center beam are often esthetically pleasing and provide relatively good stability. However, when a person inadvertently looses balance and falls off the support, serious injury may occur due-to the position of the center beam.
To avoid at least some of the problems with a center beam, tubular assemblies may be employed in which the corresponding end portions of two substantially parallel tubes are coupled to each other via a V-shaped connector in which the tip of the V-shape points upwards at an angle of about 45 degrees (see Prior Art FIG. 2). However, most tubular assemblies are esthetically less attractive and often require relatively level ground for stable support. Moreover, as hammock stands with center beam, most tubular assemblies are relatively space consuming when not in operation.
To reduce the space requirements of hammock stands, a hammock stand may be reduced to separate front and back portions, wherein both the front and back portions are independently set up, and wherein the front and back portions may further be folded into a more compact configuration. Examples for such hammock stands can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 201,074 to Wheeler, or U.S. Pat. No. 260,230 to Parker, both of which are incorporated by reference herein. While such stands advantageously save space when not supporting the hammock, they typically require multiple points of attachment or contact to the ground to reliably support a person in a hammock.
Alternatively, a hammock stand may also be foldably configured as described in U.S. Pat. No. 838,078 to Carbaugh, wherein a foldable frame is secured with a pair of diagonal braces. While such foldable frames allow a side-to-side reduction in space, such frames do generally not allow for both side-to-side and front-to-back folding operation. Moreover, before an operator can fold such frames, the diagonal braces typically need to be removed. In still further known configurations, hammock frames may also be collapsed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,907 to Huang and U.S. Pat. No. 5,983,422 to Bayless describe a configuration in which the hammock frame has a foldable center beam with foldable angled support structures. Alternatively, a collapsible hammock frame may also be configured to include a pair of foldable inverted V-shaped stands that are connected to each other with a foldable lateral support as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,046,203 to de Cuadros.
While such collapsible hammock frames provide at least some space saving when not supporting the hammock, numerous disadvantages still remain. Among other things, all or almost all of the known hammock stands still require substantial space when not in operation. Furthermore, folding and unfolding of such hammock stands is often difficult, especially to an inexperienced or physically challenged user. Therefore, there is still a need to provide improved hammock stands.